Excuse Us, May We See Your ID?

Ain't it nifty? Look who's 50 ... or older! The celebs who came to Monday's AARP the Magazine Inspire Awards were in a buoyant mood, making the red-carpet thing much more fun than usual.

Glenn Close, in a sparkly gray jacket, was being honored for mental-health advocacy and seemed happy to be 61: "I was a very late bloomer. You only start to get some kind of inkling of what's going on when you're 50."

Peter Gallagher, 53, with the thick, glossy mane of a 23-year-old, said hurrah for AARP: "It's the one tiny corner of our popular culture where it's not a sin to be over 25," he told our colleague Marissa Newhall -- though he did enjoy his time on the teen drama "The O.C." "It was such a good story to be telling, about an outsider family who doesn't lose themselves or their sense of humor." Does he watch "Gossip Girl"? "No."

Quincy Jones and Colin Powell (Greg Gibson Photography)

Quincy Jones, 75, was still in the afterglow of the previous night's Kennedy Center Honors. "So many friends who were there last night. ... Peter Townshend, I knew him when he had hair. A lot of hair. Roger [Daltrey] still has his hair." He was musing that President-elect Barack Obama should appoint "a secretary of the arts" when up walked a jovial Colin Powell (wife Alma was an honoree) for some red-carpet banter.
"I was trying to talk to these people, but I was interrupted," Jones joked.
Hey, here's an idea: How about if the general lets Jones rent his house for the inauguration?